Archives for March 2008

After four months, the rumors have finally stopped flying. The Board of Trustees of the Magic Theatre has finally appointed a new artistic director in the shape of Loretta Greco.Greco takes over from Chris Smith, who is leaving the venerable 41-year-old San Francisco company this season after just five years as artistic director.I am personally very sad to see Smith go. He has worked with indefatigable energy, generosity of spirit, and good humor to prop up the Magic's slightly saggy reputation as a national landmark for new plays. It's been … [Read more...]

Did you hear the one about
the dyslexic agnostic with insomnia? He lays awake at night wondering if there
really is a dog.According
to Yoga Journal, 54 percent of adults in the United States suffer from insomnia
at one time or another. Artists and writers seem particularly prone to this
problem. People who spend their days creating art or spinning ideas into prose
often have a great deal of trouble switching off at night. The other day, I
came across an unusual approach to the issue while doing some research on what
I thought was a completely … [Read more...]

Chloe Veltman

...is the Senior Arts Editor at KQED (www.kqed.org), one of the U.S.'s most prominent public media organizations. Chloe returns to the Bay Area following two years as Arts Editor at Colorado Public Radio (www.cpr.org), where she was tapped to launch and lead the state-wide public media organization's first ever multimedia culture bureau. A former John S. Knight Journalism Fellow (2011-2012) and Humanities Center Fellow (2012-2013) at Stanford University, Chloe has contributed reporting and criticism to The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, BBC Classical Music Magazine, American Theatre Magazine, WQXR and many other media outlets. Chloe was also the host and executive producer of VoiceBox, a syndicated, weekly public radio and podcast series all about the art of the human voice (www.voicebox-media.org), which ran for four years between 2009 and 2013. Her study about the evolution of singing culture in the U.S. is forthcoming from Oxford University Press. Check out Chloe's website at www.chloeveltman.com and connect with her on Twitter via @chloeveltman. [Read More …]

lies like truth

These days, it's becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish between fact and fantasy. As Alan Bennett's doollally headmaster in Forty Years On astutely puts it, "What is truth and what is fable? Where is Ruth and where is Mabel?" It is one of the main tasks of this blog to celebrate the confusion through thinking about art and perhaps, on occasion, attempt to unpick the knot. [Read More...]